


Carry it With You

by just_nat



Category: The Mechanisms (Band)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, just lads being dudes talking abt trauma, this ones pretty light tbh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-03
Updated: 2021-01-03
Packaged: 2021-03-12 20:08:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28516182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/just_nat/pseuds/just_nat
Summary: On the bad days, when every little thing reminds him of the moon war and he has to keep a white knuckle grip on his gun just so he can leave his room, it's the silence that gets to Tim.~~~~~~~~~Tim's having a bad day. Coincidentally, so is Marius.
Relationships: Marius von Raum & Gunpowder Tim
Comments: 4
Kudos: 19
Collections: The Mechscord Winter Gift Exchange





	Carry it With You

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Chitra_Rive](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chitra_Rive/gifts).



> I've never actually written Tim before so this was a fun prompt to get! Hope you like your present Chandri!

On the bad days, when every little thing reminds him of the moon war and he has to keep a white knuckle grip on his gun just so he can leave his room, it's the silence that gets to Tim. 

Logically Tim knows the moon war is over, and he's safe (for a given measure of safe) on Aurora. But on bad days when Tim wakes up with the memory of the moon Kaiser's laughter ringing in his ears and Bertie's name locked behind his teeth, it doesn't feel like the war is behind him. 

It isn't quiet on Aurora often. Between rehearsals before their performances and the general chaos that comes from nine immortal space pirates living together it can be near impossible to find a moment's peace. 

But right now the ship is nearly empty. Most of the crew had headed into the nearest town to stock up on supplies and alleviate some of the boredom that comes from not having any performances lined up. Jonny had quite literally dragged Nastya out of the engine room and into town with the crew, enlisting Brian to pick the engineer up when she resisted. 

The only person on board aside from Tim was Marius, who had been holed up in the med bay for nearly a week. 

Currently, Tim was stalking the halls of Aurora wishing he hadn't drawn the short straw for staying behind. He needed the deafening bang of a grenade detonating, the flash of flames as a town fell, something to ground him firmly in the present. 

Instead the halls are silent aside from his own echoing footsteps. Subconsciously Tim finds himself waiting for the familiar alarms to blare and break the silence, warning of an imminent gas attack by the Kaiser's men. 

Bertie used to sing during the quiet moments, Tim remembers suddenly and that age old grief mixes with the anxiety already swirling in his stomach to create a paralyzing dread that makes him sick. 

He needs to hide. 

The silence is too loud, the hallway too wide with nobody to watch his back and warn of incoming Lenny attacks, nowhere to take cover from microwave attacks and he needs to get  _ away _ . 

Tim latches onto that thought and starts to run. He means to go to the armory, to grab a gas mask and the biggest gun he could carry just to be prepared. Instead, Tim finds himself outside the doors to the medbay. 

The gunner scowls up at the ceiling. The awful panic was still coursing through his veins and dealing with whatever funk Marius had gotten himself into wouldn't help. 

Turning away from the doors, Tim very deliberately walked away in the direction of the armory.

Less than a minute later, he was standing in front of the medbay entrance again. Letting out a wordless snarl of frustration, Tim upholstered his gun and fired a few haphazard shots into the walls. 

Aurora's meddling was funny when Tim was in a better mood but right now all it was doing was making the panic grow under his skin, making his heart pound and his hands shake. 

Normally Tim would just throw some grenades around and blast through doors until Aurora decided to let him go but he didn't have any explosives with him right now which was the whole  _ problem _ . 

"Aurora," Tim says through clenched teeth, "knock it off." 

"No." Came Aurora's voice through a speaker hidden in a corner near the ceiling. "You need to talk with the broken doctor." 

Tim narrows his eyes at the speaker, engages the laser sight guide in his mechanism, and fires. 

The bullet hits the speaker with pinpoint accuracy, and it dies with a burst of crackling static. Tim doesn't even get a second to enjoy the moment of victory before Aurora's voice echoes out of another speaker. 

"That was rude. And a waste of time." Aurora says flatly. Tim isn't sure how Aurora manages to pack so much emotion in her voice but he's long since learned not to question some things. 

"You need to talk to the broken doctor." Aurora repeats, and suddenly a bundle of wires erupt from the wall opposite Tim and wrap themselves around him. 

"Wh-" is all he manages to get out before the wires pick him up and hurl him at the medbay doors, which open and then rapidly shut again once Tim passes through. 

Landing rather ungracefully on the floor, Tim picks himself up with a groan. 

"Talk." Aurora says forcefully, and the distinct click of the doors locking from the outside sounds from behind Tim. 

"Fuck!" Tim shouts, scrambling towards the entrance.

A couple tugs on the door handles confirm they're solidly locked however, and no amount of pushing or pulling makes them budge. 

"Damn." He grumbles, reaching for his gun. Shooting at the doors isn't gonna help if Aurora is that determined to make him talk to Marius but it might make him feel better. 

But when he went to wrap his fingers around the handle of his gun, there was nothing there. Confused, Tim looked down at his holster and saw it was empty. It had fallen out or likely been  _ taken  _ out when Aurora had thrown him. 

Tim clenched his fist to try and stave off the sudden spike of panic being unarmed brought. He had weapon stashes everywhere, including the medbay. There should be a plasma pistol from the last cyber war they dropped in on duct-taped under one of the bed if he could just- 

"What are you doing here." A slightly hoarse voice asks from behind him, and Tim spins around. 

Marius looks... well he looks like shit if Tim's being honest. The baron has deep bags under his eyes that closely show how little he's been sleeping, and there's a fine tremor running through his entire body that is reminiscent of the way Tim was shaking before. 

The only real consolation is the lack of blood anywhere on him that Tim can see.

"You look like shit." Tim says, because he's still not thinking clearly and apparently that means he has no filter. 

Marius scowls. "Thanks. Are you just here to pick a fight then?" 

The idea is tempting, Tim has to admit. Getting into a fight would bring the noise and violence he needs to get out of his own head. But Marius's hands are shaking and he keeps flinching away from something. 

Normally Tim wouldn't care, but Marius has been with the mechanisms for nearly a thousand years now and Tim has never seen him like this. It's partially concern and partially curiosity that drives him to step away from the doors and closer to Marius. 

"I'm not looking for a fight," Tim says, watching Marius carefully for a reaction, "Aurora seemed to think I needed to talk to you so she literally threw me in here. I'm having... a bad day." 

Marius softens for just a second before a part of the ship creaks louder than normal and he flinches, drawing in on himself.

"I'm not open for therapy today." Marius says shortly. "Try asking Aurora nicely to let you out, or just blast the doors until they open." 

"Don't have any explosives on me," Tim responds automatically, "think I used my last fireball grenade on Jonny last week and Aurora wouldn't let me go to the armory for more." 

Then he frowns. "That's not the point. Why have you been holed up in here for weeks?" It's blunt and a part of Tim cringes at it but he's never been particularly good with words anyways. 

Bertie used to laugh at him for it, Tim remembers but quickly stops that train of thought in its tracks. This wasn't the time. 

Marius stays quiet for a long moment, seemingly unprepared for Tim to just outright ask. 

The silence stretches on awkwardly and Tim begins to feel nervous. Maybe being straightforward hadn't been the best plan after all. 

Just as Tim sucks in a breath to apologize for being too inconsiderate, Marius breaks the silence. 

"You said you've been having a bad day?" 

"...yeah?" 

"Well I've been having a bad couple weeks."

His voice cracks slightly on the last word and Tim watches him swallow around it. Silence falls again as Tim struggles to think of something to say. 

He isn't  _ good  _ with emotional stuff. That's why he leaves it to Marius who insists on being the crew's therapist. But it's Marius who's hurting right now and Tim can more and more walls go up around him the longer he takes to reply. 

"...anyways." Marius says stiffly. "That's why. You might as well leave now." 

Tim groans internally as Marius begins to turn away. He wishes he were better at this sort of thing, but he has to at least try or Aurora will make his life a living hell. 

"Look, I'm not good with feelings." He starts, shoving his hands in his pockets for lack of anything else to do with them. "But you said you're having a bad day, and, well, so am I. Maybe we can have a bad day together, instead of separately." 

Marius hesitates for a second, not saying anything, and Tim keeps going. He's saying whatever comes to mind first, just trying to get Marius to listen to him.

"We don't have to talk about it or anything, we don't even have to stay here if Aurora decides to  _ let us out, _ " The last part is pointedly directed towards the ceiling, which gives no response, "we could just have a drink in the kitchen or something." 

"Okay," Marius says and Tim does a little mental victory cheer. "but I can't just sit around and drink. I need to walk around, do something other than mope." 

Tim shrugs. That actually worked out better for him anyways. He could check on some of his "just in case" food and weapon stashes and maybe get Marius's input on the upgrades he planned to make to Aurora's artillery. 

"Alright then. Let's go do some maintenance then." 

With that, Tim turns back towards the doors and gives a pointed tug on the handles. It takes a second, but the doors do open. 

He walks out with Marius close behind, and once again heads in the direction of the armory. He keeps up a light conversation with Marius as they walk, enough to keep the silence from creeping back in. 

Marius still looks tense, but Tim tries his best to keep the conversation away from heavier topics. He hasn't quite figured out what's going on with Marius, but talking fills the silence and seems to distract him enough that by the time they reach the armory, Marius appears more settled. 

"Can we check on something?" He asks suddenly and Tim blinks.

The nauseating panic from earlier had settled into an itch that sat just under his skin, and Tim really wants to stock back up on explosives to help soothe the itch. But he made a commitment to help Marius so he steps back from the doors of the armory. 

"Lead the way!" He says with a dramatic hand flourish. 

Marius lets out a small huff of laughter that immediately makes Tim feel slightly proud of himself, and starts walking. 

They don't go very far from the armory, just a small out of the way maintenance storage room that's a few hallways to the left of the armory. 

Marius puts a hand on the door, pauses, and turns back to Tim, suddenly making eye contact. 

"Don't tell the others about this okay?" He asks, and Tim nods despite his growing confusion. 

The door swings open to reveal a small collection of food and weapons, and all of the sudden some things click into place for Tim. 

"You were a soldier." He realizes, and immediately regrets saying it out loud when Marius flinches and whips his head around to stare at Tim. 

"What?" Marius whispers, looking haunted. 

"Sorry, it's just- certain things are making more sense now, is all." Tim almost wants to laugh at how the context of Marius being a soldier brings clarity to everything that confused him before. 

He's not  _ that  _ tactless though, so instead Tim hastens to explain before Marius gets upset and shoots him. 

"You know my backstory Marius, you think I would judge you for this? I have stockpiles around too, just in case..." Tim trails off, suddenly serious, and Marius picks up. 

"Just in case somebody tries to invade." Marius says, looking at Tim with new understanding in his eyes. 

Tim smiles weakly back. "Yeah. sPTSD is a bitch, huh." 

Marius snorts at that, which turns into full blown laughter when Tim starts to snicker as well. Both their laughs have an edge of hysteria to them, but it's also filled with the relief of being understood. 

When the last of their laughter finally tapers off, Marius all but collapses to the ground where he stands. Tim crosses over from the doorway and sits next to him, letting Marius lean his head on his shoulder.

"It's silence for me," Tim says quietly, "on these types of bad days. You could never hear the weapons in the moon war, never hear the gas or the microwave attacks until the alarms went off." 

Marius rotates his head on Tim's shoulder to look up at him and says, "For me it's engine sounds, and the sound of metal creaking and yielding. It was, when I lost my arm, all I could hear was the metal falling and-" he breaks off, shuddering. 

Tim's hand finds Marius's metal one and squeezes it. 

"You don't have to explain. I get it." Tim squeezes Marius's hand again and adds "if you get like this again, you can come find me okay?" 

"Alright," Marius responds, "but that goes two ways. If you need to talk about anything or you just need company, I'll be there." 

Tim nods, and lets out a soft breath, letting the silence sit between them. It isn't awkward this time. Right now, both of them are just two ex-soldiers finding comfort and understanding in each other.


End file.
